“Kissing you was the only way I knew to stop you from arguing with me.”
She swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand as if trying to wipe away his kiss. “Well, don’t do it again.”
“You used to like it when I kissed you,” he reminisced, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans to keep from reaching for her again.
“That was before I discovered how deceptive you are.” If looks could kill, hers was sure to finish him off in about two seconds flat.
“What time is your appointment for the ultrasound?”
“Monday afternoon at three.” She gave him a confused look. “Why?”
“I’ll arrange for my pilot to pick us up before noon on Monday,” he said, quickly calculating how long the helicopter flight would take to get back to the city. “I have clothes here, but that should give us more than enough time to go by your place so that you can get ready and still make the appointment.”
She shook her head. “I’m sure you have another resort to build or some corporate thing that needs your full attention. You don’t have to go with me. I’ll be fine without you.”
Yes, he did have to accompany her. But he wasn’t about to tell her that he felt an obligation to protect his unborn child, even though she’d given him no good reason for concern.
“Clearing my calendar for the day won’t be a big deal.” He shrugged. “I’d already counted on spending a few extra days here because of the flooding. Besides, that’s the beauty of being the sole owner. You can do what you want, when you want and nobody says a word unless they don’t care about being fired.”
“Let me put it this way, Zach.” He watched as she clenched both fists at her sides and he could tell her frustration level was close to the boiling point. “I don’t want you to go to the doctor with me.”
“Why? You said you spent several weeks trying to find me. Now you’re telling me you don’t want me around?”
“I searched for you because I thought you might want to know that you’d fathered a child,” she said tightly. “Not because I wanted you to go with me to doctor appointments or ‘do the right thing.’”
“That’s too bad, darlin’.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m going to the doctor with you and there isn’t a damned thing you can do to stop me.” Smiling, he added, “And I will be doing the right thing and making you my wife.”
“I don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn about this, Zach,” she grumbled.
“I could say the same thing about you.”
Closing her eyes for a second as if trying to keep from belting him one, when she opened them, they sparkled with anger. “I give you my word that I’ll tell you everything the doctor says and even make an extra copy of the picture from the ultrasound for you.”
“I’m sure you would.” He’d like to believe Arielle would be completely honest with him, but he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain. After all, he’d trusted his former fiancée and that had ended in absolute tragedy. “But I’m a hands-on kind of guy, darlin’. I never rely on secondhand information and I want to hear for myself what the man has—”
“Woman,” she corrected him. “My obstetrician is a woman.”
“Okay. I want to hear what the woman has to say.” He smiled as he reached forward and placed his hand on her pregnant stomach. “I’m the daddy. I’m entitled to know what’s going on, as well as finding out whether we’re having a boy or girl at the same time you do.”
She shook her head and removed his hand from her stomach. “I didn’t say you weren’t. But did it ever occur to you that it might make me uncomfortable to have you in the room during an examination?”
Her revelation was unexpected. Before he could stop himself, he reached out to run his index finger along her creamy cheek. “Why, Arielle? It’s not like I haven’t been intimately acquainted with your body before.”
“That was several months ago and a lot of things have changed since then,” she said, looking away.
“Like what?” he asked, fighting the urge to take her back into his arms. “We’re still the same two people who spent an entire week together.”
As he watched, the color on her cheeks deepened. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Then what?”
“After waking up alone to find that I meant absolutely nothing to you, I don’t particularly care to be around you,” she declared flatly. “Nor do I care to hear the reason you left.”
He regretted the emotional pain he’d caused her. But that couldn’t be changed now. “I’m sorry you feel that way, darlin’. But it’s something that’s going to have to change, and damned quick.” He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and, tipping it up, forced her to look him straight in the eye. “Once we get married, we’ll be together all of the time. We’re going to live together, go to all your prenatal appointments together and…we’ll be sharing a bed.”
He heard a hitch in her breathing a moment before she backed away from his touch. “I don’t think so.” As she turned to leave, she added, “It’s not going to happen and you might as well get used to that fact just as quick.”
Watching Arielle storm from the room, Zach straightened his stance. Oh, it was going to happen, all right. They would be married as soon as he could get a marriage license. When he wanted something, he went after it with a single-minded determination that never failed to net him the desired results. And that was something else she was going to have to get used to.
From everything she’d said and the way she acted, she was happy and looked forward to having his child. But he would not take it on faith that was the case here. That’s why he fully intended to make her Mrs. Zach Forsythe and ensure his right to monitor everything that took place for the rest of the pregnancy.
Abandoning the book she’d been reading, Arielle shifted to a more comfortable position on the window seat and watched the pouring rain. She had successfully avoided Zach at breakfast by getting up around dawn and bringing a couple of muffins and a glass of milk back to the guest room. But she wasn’t naive enough to think she could do the same thing for lunch. In fact, she was surprised that Zach hadn’t looked for her when she remained in her room all morning.